


The Only Thing I Know For Real

by Mitooshka



Series: Even Metal Tarnishes. [2]
Category: Metal Gear, Metal Gear Rising - Fandom
Genre: Character Death, Gen, Major Spoilers, Other, couple only if you squint, in which Sam is an asshole and Raiden knows this, post-Rising
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-07-31
Packaged: 2018-04-12 04:50:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4466063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitooshka/pseuds/Mitooshka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Because sometimes what we know and what is shown to us are two very different things; sometimes there is still smoke in the air, long after the fire had died.</p><p>// Raiden finds himself on a roof in Denver, and he also finds an unlikely friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Only Thing I Know For Real

  
            When Raiden found himself on a roof in Denver, he wouldn’t have thought of three things; one that he would be visited by seemingly a ghost of Christmas past, two that his cyborg plating would not be used and thirdly, that he wouldn’t be alone.  
  
  
            Raiden would have expected anyone else on the roof of the building, anyone but _him._ Maverick had pretty much stopped chasing him but that didn’t mean that no one else had; Desperado was still a thing and so were the rest of the PMC clientele eager to get their hands on him. But why did it have to be… _him._  
  
  
            But there he was, standing in all his former glory and dressed in less than when they had seen each other, close to 8 months ago.  
  
  
            “You.” Raiden snarled, his lip coming to curl, not wearing his artificial jaw piece. His clothing was simple, tailored to be that of civilian clothing, he instinctively reached for the case that held his sword.  
  
   
            The person, clad in civilian clothing to match his own stepped forward, hands up and away from his body. A gesture of surrender.  
  
  
            “Now now Jack, I haven’t come for blood I assure you.” Sam’s voice was languid and calm; no threat evident in his body language either but that didn’t mean Raiden had to trust him.  
  
  
            “What are you doing here; I strictly remember getting rid of you.” The pale haired man questioned, his own body not easing up. Just because Sam wasn’t exhibiting aggression didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it. After all the last time he had seen him he was sprawled in the dirt like a pile of scrap metal.  
  
  
            “Ah, isn’t that interesting; you see sometimes we can get rid of so many things but they seem to always find their way back, like dogs and herpes.” Sam chuckled and stopped a few meters short of Raiden, his hands still outstretched. His hair was longer but still held in a ponytail but his face looked slightly more worn than it had been previously.  
  
  
            “Very funny, do you want to tell me what you want or should I cut another hole through you?” Raiden threatened, his voice coming to be low and impatient.  
  
  
            “Like I said Jack, I haven’t come for blood and if I had, trust me you would already be dead. You have my sword?” Sam lifted a brow, trying to keep the want out of his voice. He had gone 8 months without his Murasama and it hadn’t been the easiest of months. It was like his comfort object, the one thing in his life that he held onto when everything else fell away.  
  
  
            Raiden’s eyes narrowed slightly and he slowly shook his head, “Maverick took the sword, I didn’t find any use for it after I killed Armstrong.”  
  
  
            “Oh how rude, you won’t even thank me for letting Wolfy bring it to you?” Sam laughed again, putting his hands on his hips and sighing, “Well if you don’t have it then you don’t have it, I will have to get it back at some point and I would hate to do so illegally.”  
  
  
            Raiden snorted, easing up only slightly when he saw the man really not wanting to fight.  “Well you’re out of luck; I don’t work for Maverick anymore. Going to have to find some other way to get it.”  
  
  
            “I know you don’t work for them anymore, but I know you still have friends…surprisingly.”  
  
  
            “You’re not working on my good side here.”  
  
  
            “Right, well I guess I might actually have to ask them politely. I can be charming you know.” Sam smiled, crookedly and the scar near his eye crinkled slightly.  
  
  
            “More like a crocodile can be charming.” Raiden threw back, “you still haven’t answer my question; what are you doing here?”  
  
  
            “Here? In Denver?”  
  
  
            “No, here as in alive, like I said I remember putting a sword through your body.” Raiden said, gesturing to the center of Sam’s chest.  
  
  
            The cyborg looked down and then back at him, lifting a brow and pursing his lips for a second, “ah yes about that…you’re not the only one who can use nanopaste you know. Actually, after our little run-in I got fairly used to it might I add.”  
  
  
            “How did you survive, Blade Wolf said you were a confirmed kill and AIs, they don’t lie.” Raiden questioned; even this was beginning to be a bit much. He wondered if he was going insane, if all this isolation had caused one of his implants to go on the fritz and make him start hallucinating annoying Brazilian men.  
  
  
            However Sam simply shook his head, his face becoming quite serious.  
  
  
            “No, AIs will only lie if you tell them to lie and I told Blade Wolf to lie to you, allow me some peace and decision making time. See Raiden, you aren’t the only one with a split personality, though of course mine doesn’t involve the necessary killing and evil laughter that yours does.” Sam explained, “No, I asked Blade Wolf to lie to you because a day before the finality of war and you’ve got me questioning the entire thing. What my purpose was in all of that, your words…hm, they made me feel something I had not wished to feel.”  
  
  
            Raiden stayed silent, looking at him carefully and searching his face for any sign that this was a trap Sam was waiting for him to walk into.  
  
  
            “Shame.”  
  
  
            “Shame? I thought people like you didn’t feel shame.” Raiden’s brows furrowed.  
  
  
            “People like me? Mercenaries, ones who make a living off the misery of others? I hate to tell you Raiden,” Sam said using the much more affectionate name, “but deep down inside, whether we are made from nanomachines or not, we are all the same. I felt shame for everything I used to stand for and how I may have sold it all out.”  
  
  
            Now the silence was deafening as both males looked at each other, a test to see which one would break in terms of emotion. Whether Raiden would blow Sam off and Sam would go back to trying to hunt down the illusive cyborg or, if to Raiden, Sam took out some copycat Murasama and tried to cut him into little bits.  
  
  
            “…Since you are the strong silent type, I won’t push you but I will sit down if there is enough roof for the both of us?” Sam smiled slightly, trying to break the tension and turn the subject to something lighter, or at least let Raiden catch his thoughts before replying.  
  
  
            Sam walked to the edge and lowered himself down, still slightly on guard in case the other wanted to throw him off the roof or something. Raiden was equally as careful, but as he sat down beside the Brazilian he felt a faint stirring of relief at the unexpected company. It had been a long time since he had worked with someone, and though Sam was the… _ideal_ of people, he was at least someone who was breathing and less made out of metal than he.  
  
  
            “Why did you come here? After everything you should have just left, left it all behind.” Raiden said quietly.  
  
  
            Sam looked at him from the side, his eyes calm and his hands in his lap, “what? Like you, drop everything? I suppose it is easier for me, I don’t have anything holding me down, not like you I’m guessing…still, there is little place for someone of my _caliber_ to run to.”  
  
  
            “Didn’t have to come back to Denver.”  
  
  
            “Yes well, after I put myself back together, it was the closest area and what I knew and also I left my bike here. Only, what is interesting is that it isn’t here, turns out someone took it and left a Maverick phone number in its place.” Sam’s mouth twitched and he tried to let the pale haired man hunch a little in sudden realization.  
  
  
            Raiden tried to not feel guilty as he remembered the Harley with the cool flames on the side.  
  
  
            “Was it blue and black?”  
  
  
            “Si, bonito, how did you know?” the Brazilian laughed and before he could stop himself, he clapped a hand onto Raiden’s shoulder, heavy with the metal cybernetics. Raiden didn’t flinch but more so jerked away in sudden awareness but turned to see Sam with his hands up in surrender once more, “right, I forgot how terribly sensitive you are. My apologies.”  
  
  
            “Yeah well…” Raiden cleared his throat, brushing off make-shift dust from his civilian clothing and straightening it up, “I had to borrow it for business.”  
  
  
            “Ah, well it was a nice bike…going to miss it but that is how it goes, no? However after finding out about my bike, I sort of wandered around here and there and then you came up. I found out you weren’t working for Maverick and decided to come find you and now look,” Sam held up his arms, gesturing to the city, “here I am once more! Seems I always come back to this place, it’s like a curse. Lost a lot and gained much.”  
  
  
            Raiden turned to look at him, wondering how this man could smile and be so jolly when he was obviously hitting a mid-life crisis of some sort. Still, he almost admired him, admired the way he was able to bounce back and not appear so distant. His eyes darted to his arm and watched the metal plates slide into place as he moved it. “They take your arm?”  
  
  
            Sam’s smile faltered and he looked down at the limb, taking in the metal and the way it only slightly whirred when he moved it, he blinked a few times as if registering that it was even there. “Hm…you lose a lot of things in life Raiden and you also take a lot of things, this is just one of them. Works well enough I suppose.” He made a show of moving the metal fingers and Raiden watched him carefully.  
  
  
            “Why would you work for Desperado if they did that? You really are fucking stupid, a world class shit-eating grin and a head full of nothing.” Raiden growled, shaking his head and staring out into the lowlight of the city. Everything seemed much simpler up here anyways, he could take time for himself or listen to samurais tell their war stories.  
  
  
            “I technically didn’t work for them, I just…sort of hinted around them.” Sam made a dismissive motion, “doesn’t matter, I thought it was just a job, turned out it was a hell of a lot more than I wanted.”  
  
  
            “What are you going to do now?” Raiden asked, quieter than the angry statement he had said before. He looked at Sam and saw that the Brazilian was watching the horizon and he gave a shrug of his shoulders.  
  
  
            “Who knows, bonito, perhaps I’ll travel the world.” He snorted in laughter and then, in a softer voice he murmured, “Though I would rather do it with someone by my side.”  
  
  
            “What?” Raiden’s brows lifted and he tilted away from him in shock.  
  
  
            “Si, I know you have this whole ‘lone-wolf’ thing going on but I was wondering if you wouldn’t be partial to my tagging along. You do owe me my sword…and a bike…and I guess a few body parts.” Sam added in, inclining his head slightly.  
  
  
            “Hey if you think I’m just going to forget-“Raiden started, the fury rising in his voice. What sort of nerve this guy had! Asking him to push aside all their former rivalry and-  
  
  
            Only he was silenced as Sam put his prosthetic hand over his mouth and muffled his angry quips.  
  
  
            “Shut up Jack, I’m not asking you to forget but I am asking you to forgive. You killed me once and I let you, you defeated the evil and became a hero. That is what you wanted, si? You found some redemption and now I would like to find mine.” Sam grinned, that same lazy one that he gave Raiden when they first met; full of seduction and confidence.  
  
  
            Raiden pushed his hand away and frowned, turning back to the skyline and after a pregnant pause he finally said, “I’m watching you, this doesn’t mean we’re completely even, you know.”  
  
  
            “Wouldn’t expect anything else from the famous White Devil…though you might want to find yourself a new nickname.”  
  
  
            “I do? I have to find a new nickname, _Jetstream Sam_.” Raiden smirked slightly, only the edges of his lips tilting upwards.  
  
  
            “Fair enough.” Sam shook his head and sighed, a pout almost beginning to form on his face; why did everyone have to bring up the nickname?  
  
  
            They stayed silent for a long time, breathing in the Denver air and letting the cool night wash over what little senses they had left. When Raiden had climbed onto the roof of the building he never figured to meet anyone there, let alone a rival, a dead one at that and yet…now he felt like there was stillness in the chaos in the world. He didn’t know why, he didn’t know how but it gave him a moment of peace. It let him believe he wasn’t as much of a killer as he thought himself to be and, looking at Sam from the corner of his eye, he let himself have a moment of companionship with an unlikely person.  
  
            “So…any chance of you apologizing for the bike?”  
  
  
            “Fat chance.”  
  
  
            After all, the only thing both of them knew for real was that sometimes the smell of smoke still lingered long after the blaze had died.  


**Author's Note:**

> Personally after playing Sam's DLC where you explicitly see his bike as being the same one Raiden takes in the game, I HAD to include that in here. It was too good of an opportunity to pass up. That and I just couldn't help but imagine the look on Sam's face as he looks down at the phone number and matches it to a Maverick number. Too good.
> 
> Also yes, I know this fandom pretty much died LONG ago but I simply fell in love with these two and the complexities surrounding them. Sam is always going to be my favorite.


End file.
